MANAGEMENT O F FISHERY RESOURCES
7
groups of fishermen with conflicting interests, e.g. one group fishing
herring and another group taking cod which feed on herring. However,
problems of management, and indeed some of the outstanding examples
of the failure to achieve proper management, have occurred when there
has been no conflict of long-term interests, but merely a conflict
between the long-term interest for the fishery as a whole and the
immediate desire of the individual fisherman to catch as much as he
can today.
It is natural not to be greatly concerned with a problem until it
becomes urgent; thus so long as most fish stocks were not too heavily
fished, and there remained alternative unexploited stocks to which the
fleets exploiting the overfished stocks could turn, the problems of
fishery management have received too little attention. This is particularly unfortunate because of the need, from several considerations, to
take action as early as possible. Biologically, the assessment of any
fishery depends on measuring the effect on the stock of changes in
fishing. This assessment is made much easier and more precise if data
are available from periods of very light fishing. Detailed and expensive
biological studies of the stocks after the fishery has become very intense
cannot substitute for reliable data on such simple things as the average
size of fish, or the average catch per boat, from the periods of light
fishing. Similarly, the practical problems of regulations are much less
if regulatory measures are considered well before the stocks are clearly
overfished ; the social problems in limiting further entry to a fishery are
much less than those in reducing the existing number of boats or number
of fishermen. For all these reasons, therefore, the various problems
relating to proper management of fishery resources deserve urgent
attention.
11. THE NEED FOR MANAGEMENT
A. The depletion of marine resources
A hundred years ago most people, including leading scientists,
believed that the living resources of the sea were essentially inexhaustible-" there are more good fish in the sea than ever came out of
i t ". K,epeated experience since then, a t first for the most valuable or
vulnerable species, has shown how false this assumption was. The first
stocks to show depletion were those close to the ports of the industrial
nations. Shortly after the development of the steam trawler-one of
the earliest applications of modern industrial techniques to fishing-the
stocks of plaice in the North Sea showed signs of depletion. The average
annual landings of plaice by individual trawling smacks was clearly
decreasing as early as 1880, even though the total landings were still
7
groups of fishermen with conflicting interests, e.g. one group fishing
herring and another group taking cod which feed on herring. However,
problems of management, and indeed some of the outstanding examples
of the failure to achieve proper management, have occurred when there
has been no conflict of long-term interests, but merely a conflict
between the long-term interest for the fishery as a whole and the
immediate desire of the individual fisherman to catch as much as he
can today.
It is natural not to be greatly concerned with a problem until it
becomes urgent; thus so long as most fish stocks were not too heavily
fished, and there remained alternative unexploited stocks to which the
fleets exploiting the overfished stocks could turn, the problems of
fishery management have received too little attention. This is particularly unfortunate because of the need, from several considerations, to
take action as early as possible. Biologically, the assessment of any
fishery depends on measuring the effect on the stock of changes in
fishing. This assessment is made much easier and more precise if data
are available from periods of very light fishing. Detailed and expensive
biological studies of the stocks after the fishery has become very intense
cannot substitute for reliable data on such simple things as the average
size of fish, or the average catch per boat, from the periods of light
fishing. Similarly, the practical problems of regulations are much less
if regulatory measures are considered well before the stocks are clearly
overfished ; the social problems in limiting further entry to a fishery are
much less than those in reducing the existing number of boats or number
of fishermen. For all these reasons, therefore, the various problems
relating to proper management of fishery resources deserve urgent
attention.
11. THE NEED FOR MANAGEMENT
A. The depletion of marine resources
A hundred years ago most people, including leading scientists,
believed that the living resources of the sea were essentially inexhaustible-" there are more good fish in the sea than ever came out of
i t ". K,epeated experience since then, a t first for the most valuable or
vulnerable species, has shown how false this assumption was. The first
stocks to show depletion were those close to the ports of the industrial
nations. Shortly after the development of the steam trawler-one of
the earliest applications of modern industrial techniques to fishing-the
stocks of plaice in the North Sea showed signs of depletion. The average
annual landings of plaice by individual trawling smacks was clearly
decreasing as early as 1880, even though the total landings were still